Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at a Democratic presidential debate sponsored by CNN.
After the DNC emails were leaked, Clinton and other Democrats immediately blamed Russia for hacking their computers, but the DNC refused to allow the FBI to examine its computer servers to see who might have hacked in.

Instead the DNC turned to a private company, CrowdStrike, to investigate. The company – linked to the anti-Russian think tank, the Atlantic Council – concluded that Russia was behind the hack. The company said it was a sophisticated attack but also that the hackers sloppily left behind Cyrillic script and the name of the first Soviet chief of secret police – clues cited to pin the hack on Russia.

Russia and WikiLeaks have both denied that Russia was the source of the leaked emails.

William Binney, arguably one of the best mathematicians ever to work at the National Security Agency, and former CIA officer Ray McGovern, have argued that the emails must have come from a leak because a hack would be traceable by the NSA.

More speculation about the alleged election hack was raised after WikiLeaks’ “Vault 7” release, which revealed that the CIA is not beyond covering up its own hacks by leaving clues implicating others.

After Trump’s election victory, President Obama’s intelligence agencies also pinned the blame for the DNC and other Democratic-connected leaks on Russia and depicted the leaks as part of a Russian government scheme to hurt the Clinton campaign and thus boost Donald Trump.

But the Jan. 6 report by selected analysts at the FBI, CIA and NSA – and released by Obama’s Director of National Intelligence James Clapper – offered no hard evidence of Russian guilt, merely intelligence “assessments.”

A New Turn

Now, the email mystery has taken a new turn. While the Seth Rich murder case remains unsolved, a private detective hired by an anonymous third party for Rich’s family has spoken out, saying there is evidence on Seth Rich’s computer indicating that he was in touch with WikiLeaks.

Donald Trump speaking at CPAC 2011 in Washington, D.C. (Flickr Gage Skidmore)
Rod Wheeler, a former D.C. homicide detective, also told the local Washington Fox TV affiliate on Monday night that a police source told him the detectives were ordered to back off the murder investigation, a claim that D.C. police denied.

Wheeler also raised questions about the relationship between the DNC and Democratic D.C. Mayor Muriel Browser, who could have control over the D.C. police investigation. Browser told The Daily Caller: “I don’t think I particularly talked to the DNC. They came in to talk to us. I was with [Rich’s family] and their discussions with us.” When she was asked about Wheeler’s assertion that the DC police were told to shut down the case, Browser said: “Certainly not. That’s preposterous.”

The DNC did not respond to questions put to its press office by Consortium News regarding whether Rich would have had legal access to the DNC emails. Rich was not included as a participant in any of the more than 40,000 emails given to WikiLeaks.

TonyGosling wrote:

The #SethRich murder investigation is stuck because it would reveal that an American hero with a memory stick stopped Clinton. Not Russia.

When FOX 5 initially interviewed investigator Rod Wheeler about the Seth Rich case, Wheeler stated he believes there’s a cover-up at the DC Police department and keys to the murder are located within a laptop:

“The police department nor the FBI have been forthcoming,” said Wheeler. “They haven’t been cooperating at all. I believe that the answer to solving his death lies on that computer, which I believe is either at the police department or either at the FBI. I have been told both.”

Wheeler also told us,

“I have a source inside the police department that has looked at me straight in the eye and said, ‘Rod, we were told to stand down on this case and I can’t share any information with you.’ Now, that is highly unusual for a murder investigation, especially from a police department. Again, I don’t think it comes from the chief’s office, but I do believe there is a correlation between the mayor’s office and the DNC and that is the information that will come out [Tuesday]”.

One would think CNN, and other stations with a liberal bent would want to focus on a possible murder cover-up, or the whereabouts (and contents) of Rich’s computer. While Fox stated “Rod Wheeler backtracks statements about Seth Rich investigation,” as clarification to the updated link, it failed (thanks to CNN’s intrepid journalism) to explain how clarifying one statement erases the validity of others, or specify that most statements were never backtracked.

In addition, something overlooked by everyone trying to discredit Wheeler is that he clearly states

“I believe that the answer to solving his death lies on that computer, which I believe is either at the police department or either at the FBI.”

So, Wheeler states there’s a cover-up.

Wheeler states he does not know the whereabouts of Seth Rich’s computer, which he believes holds the truth regarding potential ties to WikiLeaks.

Two claims that have nothing to do with a source at the FBI, since other pieces of circumstantial evidence bolster both claims.

Apparently, CNN’s Oliver Darcy doesn’t care about both clearly stated claims, and made no mention of these claims in his recent hit piece on Wheeler, prompting establishment media to proclaim victory in the Seth Rich murder narrative.

Oliver Darcy, a senior media reporter at CNN wrote a piece titled Story on DNC staffer’s murder dominated conservative media — hours later it fell apart. When reading the title, one might think this story is purely about political partisanship, rather than a murder investigation that’s provided no leads after one year. However, it’s almost certain Rod Wheeler doesn’t view himself to be a mouthpiece for conservative media and the Rich family hired him for his expertise.

Aside from clickbait, the headline is deceptive for numerous other reasons. First, the Seth Rich murder has been on the hearts and minds of progressives throughout the United States, not just conservatives. Second, the fact Wheeler might not speak to a source at the FBI has absolutely zero relevance to his claims of a DC Police Department cover-up, or other aspects of this unsolved case. Most importantly, Darcy wrote the following message to me today on Twitter:

Darcy’s mystery “Wheeler email” almost certainly doesn’t condone CNN’s misleading headline. If anything, the majority of the Fox interview was about something other than an FBI source. Wheeler clearly spoke about the D.C. Police Department cover-up (and Rich’s laptop) for the majority of his short interview with FOX 5 and it’s telling that FOX and CNN’s Darcy fail to make that distinction.

In terms of Darcy’s article (a piece that everyone in the “Seth Rich was killed by two bullets in the back from a botched robbery” crowd used as political ammunition), the CNN piece is more of a public relations press release, than actual investigative journalism. Rod Wheeler clearly states he doesn’t have possession of the computer, and clearly states he believes DC Police aren’t doing their job. Both claims are ignored by Darcy’s laser-focus on these quote, introduced by specious introductions:

Wheeler instead said he only learned about the possible existence of such evidence through the reporter he spoke to for the FoxNews.com story. He explained that the comments he made to WTTG-TV were intended to simply preview Fox News’ Tuesday story. The WTTG-TV news director did not respond to multiple requests for comment. “I only got that [information] from the reporter at Fox News,” Wheeler told CNN.

Asked about a quote attributed to him in the Fox News story in which he said his “investigation up to this point shows there was some degree of email exchange between Seth Rich and Wikileaks,” Wheeler said he was referring to information that had already been reported in the media.

For a breakthrough article in the Seth Rich saga, Wheeler is hardly quoted at all (short, likely out of context quotes) in the over 800 word CNN piece. Interestingly, nobody knows what [information] Darcy is referring to in one quote of Wheeler, nor does the reader know the actual question Wheeler answered.

Mr. Darcy, do you think it’s somewhat important to show readers the question Wheeler answered with

“I only got that [information] from the reporter at Fox News,” and not simply your summary of the question?

Then Wheeler clearly refutes Darcy’s thesis, that an FBI source is the only basis for other claims, within this Fox interview on Hannity:

In the interview on Fox, Wheeler states he has a source, but doesn’t specify only an FBI source; the maniacal focus of Darcy’s CNN piece.

Take note, CNN, because at 2:10 of the Hannity interview, Wheeler states

“I have never the seen the emails myself directly, I haven’t even seen the computer that Seth Rich used… I don’t even know where the computer is… where did this information come from… there was a federal investigator… a person that’s very credible… he said he laid eyes on the computer and he laid eyes on the case file… it’s very consistent for a person with my experience… perhaps there were some email communications between Seth and WikiLeaks… every time I talk to the police department about the WikiLeaks or the emails, it’s automatically shut down…that discussion is automatically shut down.”

Why would that discussion be automatically shut down by DC Police? Any thoughts, Oliver Darcy?

WikiLeaks has a decade-long pristine reputation for accuracy; they’ve only published authentic documents. Unlike spy agencies or news organizations linked to political parties, Wikileaks is not affiliated with any American political group, despite the belief by some that DNC or Podesta emails (that CNN used to fire Donna Brazile and the DNC used to fire Debbie Wasserman Schultz) swayed the election. It could be quite meaningful that WikiLeaks offered a reward for information about Seth Rich’s murder, and Tweeted about the case six times, including one Julian Assange retweet of the original Fox story:

Assange retweeted:

WikiLeaks also retweeted the following:

These six Tweets were sent at different times after the latest Fox story, and there are potentially a greater number of WikiLeaks Tweets since last year, after Seth Rich was murdered.

Is CNN’s Oliver Darcy claiming that 5 retweets by WikiLeaks and one by Julian Assange have zero relevance to this case?

It’s highly doubtful WikiLeaks or Assange would go out of their way to retweet various pieces of information pertaining to the Seth Rich case, if there was no link whatsoever to Seth Rich. In addition, this doesn’t mean Seth Rich was the WikiLeaks source. It only means there’s a possible connection (Rich might have been involved, in some way with WikiLeaks) due to the Podesta emails stating Clinton’s campaign chairman was willing to make an example of leakers, or the WikiLeaks reward, etc.

Darcy’s overt disregard for Wheeler’s claim of a cover-up and his statements on the importance of Seth Rich’s laptop also discredits CNN’s obvious hit piece on Wheeler.

Ultimately, we have the Comey memo in the news, but Americans must now see the “Darcy email.”

If your email, Mr. Darcy, shows that Rod Wheeler approves 100% of the title Story on DNC staffer’s murder dominated conservative media — hours later it fell apart, then I’ll offer a sincere apology and retract my claims that you’ve deceived people regarding this topic.

Until then, there’s a possible cover-up at the DC Police Department, and a laptop that holds the keys to the Seth Rich murder is nowhere to be found. Even if Wheeler had an IRS or NASA contact as a source, or any other federal employee, those two issues (DC Police cover-up and laptop information) would remain just as relevant, and sadly, just as ignored by people like CNN’s Oliver Darcy.

Dianne Feinstein and James Clapper have both stated categorically that no direct evidence of Trump colluding with Russia exists (to their knowledge), yet circumstantial ties have dominated American media. If the same logic is applied to the Seth Rich case, circumstantial evidence points to far more than a failed robbery. Thankfully, more people care about potential police corruption, or the fate of whistleblowers, than CNN and establishment pundits.

Finally, millions of progressives, liberals, independents, and people who never vote Republican want justice for Seth Rich. To claim it’s only of interest to right-wing conspiracy theorists isn’t only disingenuous, but ignores a large portion of the United States wondering at this moment if there’s indeed a Seth Rich cover-up.

DNC staffer Seth Rich was shot and killed in his Washington, DC neighborhood on July 10, 2016.

WASHINGTON – Describing a shroud of secrecy over the death of Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich, a Virginia-based group brought an open-records complaint against D.C.’s mayor and attorney general.

Noting that the investigation of Rich’s unsolved July 2016 murder dried up months ago, the Profiling Project says there is no reason for the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department to keep a lid on surveillance footage from the area, or the medical examiner’s and forensic ballistic reports.

“MPD essentially terminated their efforts in late October 2016,” the complaint states, filed on May 30 in D.C. Superior Court. “The case is now clearly a cold case. As such, the release of the desired information would not and would not harm MPD’s efforts in any way, as there is no continuing effort.”

After Rich was shot twice in the back on July 12, 2016, a block from his apartment in D.C.’s Bloomingdale neighborhood, police suggested that the 27-year-old might have been the victim of an attempted robbery.

At the height of the presidential election season, a conspiracy theory emerged that Rich was connected to the dissemination of DNC emails to WikiLeaks, and killed because of it. WikiLeaks offered a reward for information about Rich’s death, but it has never confirmed that Rich was a source.

The Profiling Project’s lawsuit comes a few weeks after Fox News gave airtime to unsubstantiated claims by private investigator Rod Wheeler that Rich’s laptop was in FBI custody and contained evidence of a WikiLeaks connection.

Rich’s family, which denies the WikiLeaks theory, told the Washington Post recently that they have noticed recent attempts by hackers to infiltrate Rich’s email accounts.

This photograph offers a view of the Virginia offices of the Profiling Project, a group dedicated the investigating the 2016 murder of DNC staffer Seth Rich. (Image source: The Publicity Agency via Courthouse News Service)
This photograph offers a view of the Virginia offices of the Profiling Project, a group dedicated the investigating the 2016 murder of DNC staffer Seth Rich. (Photo: The Publicity Agency via Courthouse News Service)

Founded by Republican political operative Jack Burkman, the Profiling Project is a Virginia group whose sole purpose is investigating Rich’s murder.

The group says there is no reason for D.C. to keep a shroud on surveillance footage captured by a camera on the second floor of Fragler Market, a convenience store near where Rich was shot.

Though the group says its requests have gone ignored, the complaint is not clear on whether the request came from a formal Freedom of Information Act demand.

“The information is necessary in furtherance of the role of Jack Burkman as a watchdog to ensure accountability with legal requirements by the police and to protect and defend the constitutional rights of those who wish to engage in political and associational activity protected by the First Amendment,” the complaint states.

Hinting at the conspiracy theory surrounding Rich’s death, the Profiling Project’s complaint says the sought-after records would show whether the murder was at the hands of “street thugs or whether it was the product of much boarder and deeper political or international forces.”

The Metropolitan Police Department did not respond to an email seeking comment on the lawsuit.

Burkman represents the Profiling Project in the case and did not provide comment when reached by email on Friday.

U.S. intelligence agencies have said the hack of DNC emails last year was directed by the Russian government in an attempt to help Donald Trump win the election.

‘….Hayman was ­referred to during the case but not by name. Later that year he was finally ­exposed by crusading MP Geoffrey Dickens.
Mr Dickens used Parliamentary privilege to name Hayman to ­fellow MPs in the House of Commons.
He demanded to be told why Hayman had not been prosecuted….’

What with Prince Andrew’s shenanigans on Epstein’s ‘Orgy Island’, Prince Charles staying at Jimmy Savile’s Scottish house, and an ex-Deputy Head of MI6 being a paedophile, as well as MP’s and even a Cabinet Minister being peadophiles, it’s little wonder the ‘Historic Inquiry’ into high-level paedophilia is going nowhere, fast.
Indications are that it is rife among our nobility and ‘Ruling Class’._________________'And he (the devil) said to him: To thee will I give all this power, and the glory of them; for to me they are delivered, and to whom I will, I give them'. Luke IV 5-7.

'Published on 27 Jul 2017
Sources within the FBI confirm that Seth Rich was in contact with wikileaks... News outlets have confirmed the reports as well as Debbie Wasserman-Schultz complicity in the DNC cover-up'._________________'And he (the devil) said to him: To thee will I give all this power, and the glory of them; for to me they are delivered, and to whom I will, I give them'. Luke IV 5-7.

by Justin Raimondo Posted on August 04, 2017
Journalist Seymour Hersh has given us good reason to believe what many have long suspected: that the “hacking” of the Democratic National Committee, which supposedly delivered the White House to Donald Trump, was an inside job. In a recorded phone conversation (here’s a transcript) with Ed Butowsky, a Republican operative who has been financing an investigation of the Seth Rich affair, Hersh told Butowsky that Seth Rich, who worked for the DNC and was murdered on July 10, 2016, was in contact with WikiLeaks, and wanted money for access to the DNC emails.

Hersh doesn’t buy the conspiracy theory surrounding Rich’s death: he sees it as a random event, one that wasn’t too unusual given the neighborhood Rich lived in – and yet this haphazard tragedy may have led to the unraveling of the mystery that is, today, at the core of our politics: the controversy over who delivered the DNC/Podesta emails to WikiLeaks.

The Democrats, the media, and the War Party contend that the Russians hacked into the DNC, and fooled John Podesta into handing the keys to his emails over to them: a full-fledged federal investigation, complete with a special counsel, is now busy trying to find evidence of the Trump campaign’s collusion with this nefarious plot. On the other hand, the case for Russian “hacking” has been fragile from the start, and has only gotten less tenable as time goes on. Now another blow has been delivered to the “Putin did it” conspiracy theory, one that may indeed prove fatal.

Hersh contends that, upon Rich’s death, the District of Colombia police went into his apartment – with a warrant — and examined his computer, but they couldn’t get into it. So they called in the DC cyber unit, which didn’t do much better, and so they called in the FBI’s Washington field office, the cyber unit, and they got in. “What I know came off an FBI report,” says Hersh. “Don’t ask me how. You can figure it out.” Well, yes, we can indeed. He goes on to say:

“And so what the report says is that sometime in late spring, we’re talking June you know summers in June 21st, late spring would be after, I presume, I don’t know, I’d just say late spring, early summer and he makes contact with WikiLeaks. That’s in his computer and he makes contact.”

Hersh notes that the last DNC/Podesta emails posted by WikiLeaks are from late May 2016, or “early summer,” a timeline that fits in with the sequence of events: his contact with WikiLeaks followed by his death in what appears to be a random shooting. Hersh continues:

“So, they found what he’d done. He had submitted a series of documents, of emails. Some juicy emails from the DNC, and you know, by the way all this * about the DNC, um, you know, whether it was hacked or wasn’t hacked, whatever happened, the democrats themselves wrote this *, you know what I mean? All I know is that he [Seth] offered a sample, an extensive sample, you know I’m sure dozens of emails and said ‘I want money.’”

This note of realism – “I want money” – for the first time provides us with something that has previously been missing from the arguments of those who have claimed that the “hacks” were an inside job, and not a case of Russian cyber-warfare: motive. After all, why would Rich, supposedly a loyal employee of the DNC and a committed Democrat, hand over embarrassing emails that would hurt Hillary Clinton’s campaign? Well, now here we have it. If true, this not only explains why Rich would do such a thing, but also why the Rich family is furiously denying that their son was in any way connected with the DNC/Podesta email revelations.

Hersh goes on to detail what is in the FBI report:

“Then later WikiLeaks did get the password, he had a Dropbox, a protected Dropbox, which isn’t hard to do, I mean you don’t have to be a wizard IT, you know, he was certainly not a dumb kid. They got access to the Dropbox.”

And so, according to Hersh, WikiLeaks must have reached a deal with Rich, and the rest is history. It’s not clear to me what “They got access to the Dropbox” means: is Hersh talking about WikiLeaks, or the FBI? In any case, Rich apparently took precautions to cover his ass, as Hersh relates:

“He also, and this is also in the FBI report, he also let people know, with whom he was dealing, and I don’t know how he dealt, I’ll tell you about WikiLeaks in a second. I don’t know how he dealt with the WikiLeaks and the mechanism but he also, the word was passed according to the NSA report, ‘I’ve also shared this box with a couple of friends so if anything happens to me it’s not going to solve your problem.’ Ok. I don’t know what that means.”

Well, something did happen to him, but we’ll pass over that and note that Hersh mentions “the NSA report.” So the FBI, in investigating this case, turned to the National Security Agency, which has access to everyone’s online communications, and came up with evidence confirming that Rich was in contact with WikiLeaks, that he had a secure Dropbox, and that he was concerned that he might be in danger. Hersh says “the word was passed” – but to whom? There are more mysteries here than we can uncover with just these bits of information.

According to Hersh, a warrant exists for the DC police entry into Rich’s residence. There’s also a report from the FBI, which Hersh has not seen, as far as I can tell, but which has perhaps been read to him. As Hersh puts it:

“I have somebody on the inside, you know I’ve been around a long time, and I write a lot of stuff. I have somebody on the inside who will go and read a file for me. This person is unbelievably accurate and careful, he’s a very high-level guy and he’ll do a favor. You’re just going to have to trust me.”

Hersh’s record speaks for itself: from exposing the My Lai massacre to ripping the lid off the false flag Syrian “chemical attack,” he’s made a career out of unmasking the lies and machinations of the War Party. I’ll take his word over the word of some anonymous spook leaking to the Washington Post any day of the week. And perhaps this is the time to point out that there’s just as much evidence for what Hersh is telling us as there is for the tall tales of “collusion” with Moscow that have been retailed by the “mainstream” media for a solid year.

The “Russia-gate” conspiracy theory never had any real evidence to support it aside from the arbitrary assertions of three US intelligence agencies: the “proof” they submitted to the public was laughable, as Jeffrey Carr and other cyber-warfare experts have pointed out. Yet we don’t have the actual evidence to support Hersh’s contentions, although if he’s right there is indeed a paper trail: the warrant, the FBI and NSA reports, and probably more.

However, it is an exercise in elementary logic to take the simplest explanation for how the DNC/Podesta materials got out – an insider with access did it for money — rather than assume it was an elaborate Russian conspiracy involving teams of hackers, the Russian intelligence agencies, and Vladmir Putin himself. Apparently our brainless media, not to mention our not-very-intelligent “intelligence community,” have never heard of Occam’s Razor.

Hersh, who has been around the block several times, and is intimately familiar with how the intelligence community operates – as well as being personally familiar with the individuals involved – is onto the game that’s being play here. In his words:

“I have a narrative of how that whole * thing began, it’s a Brennan operation, it was an American disinformation and * the * President, at one point when they, they even started telling the press, they were back briefing the press, the head of the NSA was going and telling the press, * c***-sucker Rogers, was telling the press that we even know who in the GRU, the Russian Military Intelligence Service, who leaked it. I mean [it’s] all bs…. Trump’s not wrong to think they all * lie about him.”

It’s all bs: Russia-gate, the “collusion” gambit, and the whole avalanche of fake “news” that purports to describe a Russian conspiracy to “undermine our democracy.” It’s a lie, pure and simple. More than that: it’s an exact inversion of the truth. Because what’s happening is that a vast intelligence-gathering apparatus is being utilized to undermine an elected President and undertake what is in effect a “legal” coup d’etat. But then again, projection has always been an essential element of the War Party’s methodology.

I’m not surprised that Hersh’s revelations have been studiously ignored, even by some “alternative” news sites. Despite this ominous silence, there has been one attempt to cut Hersh off at the pass: National Public Radio ran a piece about the lawsuit Butowsky is being served with in which Hersh’s conversation is quoted. NPR tellingly edits out what Hersh actually said in that conversation, but does cite Hersh purportedly saying Butowsky misunderstood him.

However, it looks like Hersh didn’t know he was being recorded, because the recording directly contradicts both Hersh and what NPR is reporting. An email exchange between Butowsky and Hersh, in which the former pleads with the famous journalist to go public, has been published, and when a reporter called him for comment Hersh clammed up:

“‘I’m not going to comment about that stuff, I mean, come on, I live in the real world.’

“When asked to confirm that it was him speaking on the bombshell audio recording, he stated, ‘I’m not going to talk to anybody about that. No comment.’”

While Hersh is being called on to clear this matter up, there are several reasons why he might not do so, at least quite yet. He could be working on his own story, and – in the same vein – doesn’t want to burn his source, who would be understandably nervous about possibly being outed.

Whatever is going on here, Hersh’s contentions are now public. The truth, whatever it may be, is going to come out.

NOTES IN THE MARGIN

You can check out my Twitter feed by going here. But please note that my tweets are sometimes deliberately provocative, often made in jest, and largely consist of me thinking out loud.

I’ve written a couple of books, which you might want to peruse. Here is the link for buying the second edition of my 1993 book, Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement, with an Introduction by Prof. George W. Carey, a Foreword by Patrick J. Buchanan, and critical essays by Scott Richert and David Gordon (ISI Books, 2008).

You can buy An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard (Prometheus Books, 2000), my biography of the great libertarian thinker, here._________________--
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
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Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."

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